Types of Cerebral Palsy Symptoms

Symptoms can range from clumsiness to severe spasticity that contorts the child's arms and legs, requiring mobility aids, such as braces, crutches, and wheelchairs. Because other parts of the brain may also be affected, many children with cerebral palsy have other disabilities, such as intellectual disability, behavioral problems, difficulty seeing or hearing, and seizure disorders.
There are four main types of cerebral palsy:
Spastic
Athetoid
Ataxic
Mixed
In all forms of cerebral palsy, speech may be hard to understand because the child has difficulty controlling the muscles involved in speech.
In the spastic type, which occurs in over 70% of children with cerebral palsy, the muscles are stiff (spastic) and weak. The stiffness may affect both arms and both legs (quadriplegia) or mainly the legs and lower part of the body (paraplegia). Often, the same parts on both sides of the body are affected (diplegia), but sometimes only the arm and leg on one side are affected (hemiplegia). The affected arms and legs are poorly developed, as well as stiff and weak. Some children may walk in a criss-cross motion, where one leg swings over the other (scissors gait), and some may walk on their toes. Crossed, lazy, or wandering eyes (strabismus) and other vision problems may occur. Children with spastic quadriplegia are the most severely affected. They commonly have intellectual disability (sometimes severe) along with seizures and trouble swallowing. Children who have trouble swallowing may choke on secretions from the mouth and stomach and inhale (aspirate) them. Aspiration inflames the lungs, causing difficulty breathing. Repeated aspiration can permanently damage the lungs. Many children with spastic hemiplegia, diplegia, or paraplegia have normal intelligence and are less likely to have seizures.
In the athetoid type, which occurs in about 20% of children with cerebral palsy, the arms, legs, and body spontaneously move slowly and involuntarily. Movements may also be writhing, abrupt, and jerky. Strong emotion makes the movements worse, and sleep makes them disappear. Children usually have normal intelligence and rarely have seizures. Difficulty articulating words clearly is common and is often severe. If the cause is kernicterus, affected children are often deaf and have difficulty looking up.
In the ataxic type, which occurs in less than 5% of children with cerebral palsy, coordination is poor, and muscles are weak. Movements become shaky when children reach for an object (a type of tremor). Children have difficulty when they try to move rapidly or do things that require fine movements. They walk unsteadily, with their legs widely spaced.

In the mixed type, two of the above types, most often spastic and athetoid, are combined. This type occurs in many children with cerebral palsy. Children with mixed types may have severe intellectual disability.